All Singing! All Dancing! All Reviving!

Sorry for the hiccup in blogging - those Battersea dogs and cats can't do their own admin you know.

In an odd reversal for me, this year I have seen more new musicals than revivals.  One usually struggles to find decent first run musicals but this year it's the revivals that I am finding thin on the ground.  It's not looking any better for the rest of 2013, with only THE SOUND OF MUSIC and MISS SAIGON upcoming.  Like, no.

I had such high hopes for MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG at the Menier.  Great reviews bolstered the expectation that this production would be on par with previous productions I had seen - both of which had been hugely enjoyable and profoundly moving: the Guildhall School production from 1983 (my first Sondheim show) and the 2000 Donmar Warehouse production which was revived in concert form in 2010 to celebrate Sondheim's 80th birthday.

 To quote the last act closer: "Now You Know".

 

Stephen Sondheim's wonderful, loving score is one of my absolute favourites with such classics as OLD FRIENDS, GOOD THING GOING, NOT A DAY GOES BY and OUR TIME which tell the story of the fracturing of Frank, Mary and Charley's friendship over 20 years - told in reverse - and has always had the hidden tripwires that start my blubbing.

We saw it just after it had been announced that the production was transferring to the West End which might explain why they performed in such a self-aggrandising manner.  They mugged, they belted where belt was not required and they played the jokes with all the subtlety of the Three Stooges.  I really cannot understand what show the reviewers saw if they performed like this.

There was also the problem that the show was directed by Maria Friedman who somehow seems to have got the cast to sing in her style: declamatory with consonants being hit harder than a cow's arse with a banjo.  It made for an ugly sound, especially as they were all miked up - the Menier, remember, only has a 180 seat capacity.

Another downer was that they were using the re-written book and score which attempts to 'explain' the main character's Franklin's motivations.  Why?  It actually does the show a disservice as these additions feel so bolted on.  Franklin's motivations are there in the text anyway - the whole show is about how we change through the decades and friends become estranged through tiny betrayals and slights.

Of the central trio of friends, Mark Umbers as Frank and Jenna Russell as Mary gave the best performances, sadly Damian Humbley was just irritating as Charley.  The largely irksome supporting cast were regularly shown up by the subtle performances of Glyn Kerslake as the hapless Broadway producer Joe Josephson and Clare Foster as Beth, Franklin's discarded first wife.  Her emotional rendition of NOT A DAY GOES BY was a real highlight.  Josefina Gabrielle played Gussy, the temperamental Broadway actress with her usual clanging stridency.

 

This was a real disappointment although it seems to have done well enough in it's transfer to the Harold Pinter Theatre.  Nope... that doesn't work, it will always be the Comedy Theatre to me.

 

The big revival in February was A CHORUS LINE at the London Palladium in it's first West End appearance since it's original production at Drury Lane in 1976, winning the first ever Society of West End Theatre/Olivier Award for Best Musical.  The show has toured occasionally but it's a mystery why it has taken so long to play a West End theatre.

 

The production is a recreation of Michael Bennett's original production which always throws a little confusion into the mix.  Bob Avian was the original co-choreographer and now he is the director re-creating Bennett's legendary musical, Baayork Lee was the original 'Connie' and now she is restaging Bennett's choreography - so are we applauding his work or theirs?

I saw this archetypal Broadway show there in the early 1990s at the Shubert Theatre where it played for 15 years and have loved the original cast recording for years so I was curious if it would hold it's magic with this production.  Of course it did - and the front row of the dress circle also helped!

Here they all were again... the chosen 17 dancers who have survived the strenuous dance auditions to stand on the line and be quizzed relentlessly by the director/choreographer Zach.  He can't hire them all, he only needs 4 boys, 4 girls.  Although he is only casting for an anonymous chorus line behind the upcoming show's star he wants performers who have real personality and more than that, dancers who *need* to dance.

Who will get through? The testy latina Diana or quiet Paul? The cheeky Chinese Connie or the very gay and Jewish Greg? Brassy Val or mocking Sheila? The married couple Al and Kristine? Don the ex-stripper, cocky Mike or Ritchie who swopped basketball for dancing? And what of Cassie?  An ex-love of Zach's who has had success in the past and left him to try her luck as an actress in L.A.?

Played without an interval, we have two hours to get to know them and to guess who Zach will pick, who deserves it more?  The news that the production is coming off early was a real surprise.  Surely in this culture that loves nothing more than watching performers being eliminated from a race to a showbiz crown A CHORUS LINE should be able to find an audience.  It's very sad that this great show is not getting a bigger audience.

The cast certainly give it there all in the dance routines, if I have a criticism it might be that apart from the performers who have slightly higher profiles within the show, the others are a bit anonymous, you tend to remember them by the colour of their dance clothes rather than for any particular performing quality.



 But their are some fine performances: John Partridge is an odd choice as Zach, he doesn't really suggest a feared/revered director/choreographer but his anonymous quality does help with the character's sphinx-like watchfulness.  Leigh Zimmerman won the Olivier Award for Best Supporting Musical Performance and it was richly deserved.  As Sheila, the seen-it-all, danced-it-all glamour girl she steals scenes with her great comic timing and stylish dancing.  Scarlett Strallen, while not having the real natural charisma that Cassie should unknowingly exude, does a fierce solo on her big number THE MUSIC AND THE MIRROR and in the preceding scene with Zach, is touching in her recounting of her failed career in L.A.  

 

As Diana, the wary latina, Victoria Hamilton-Barritt certainly punches over her two big numbers NOTHING and the score's biggest hit WHAT I DID FOR LOVE.  As is usually the case the latter, which has too many supper-club associations when heard outside it's show context, within it makes perfect sense.  By the time this 11 o'clock number is sung in the show, we know how much the dancers have had to give up to be where they are.
 

The interesting thing about the song is that it is in fact the musical coda to what actually is the emotional heart of the show, Paul's speech about his unhappy family life while growing up gay and the redemption he found as a drag artist.  It's a wonderfully written speech - the standout moment in James Kirkwood and Nicholas Dante's book - and Gary Wood gave a pitch-perfect performance.  There wasn't a dry eye in my seat. 

 

The design of Robin Wagner still thrills in it's simplicity, Theoni V. Aldredge's dance costumes are still excellently un-theatrical until the glittering finale and Tharon Musser's lighting design still gives expression to the action.

 

Sadly Robin Wagner is the only one of the original show's creators still alive.

 

Lyricist Edward Kleban died in 1987, book writers James Kirkwood and Nicholas Dante died in 1989 and 1991 respectively, lighting designer Tharon Musser died in 2009, costume designer Theoni V. Aldredge died in 2010 and composer Marvin Hamlisch died in 2012.

 

But above all the show stands as a living monument to Michael Bennett who died in 1987.  It was his particular theatrical genius to take something so basically theatrical and turning it into something universal.

 

The show is running until 31st August and I cannot recommend it highly enough.  After all these years it really is One Singular Sensation.

 

 

Last week it was time to return to the Menier for the first time in over a year - since the debacle that was PARADISE FOUND in fact. It was to see another musical but this one actually lived up to it's hype, Stephen Sondheim's ROAD SHOW. It took a long time to get here.

In 1999 Sondheim and John Weidman (his book writer on PACIFIC OVERTURES and ASSASSINS) staged a workshop of the show under the title WISE GUYS with Nathan Lane and Victor Garber as the real-life brothers Addison and Wilson Mizner which foundered afterwards during a legal dispute with producer Scott Rudin.

But Sondheim, who had become intrigued with the story of the brothers as early as the 1950s, did not give up and in 2003 the show appeared in Chicago then Washington as BOUNCE with Richard Kind and Howard McGillin as the warring brothers with a supporting cast including Jane Powell as their mother, Gavin Creel as Addison's gay lover and Michelle Pawk as Wilson's mistress.Despite being directed by Sondheim's long-time collaborator Hal Prince, the show received middling reviews and never made it to Broadway although the score was recorded.

After the success of his minimalist SWEENEY TODD, director John Doyle was asked to work on the troublesome show with Weidman and the new revised ROAD SHOW opened in 2008 off-Broadway and won both the Obie and Drama Desk Awards for Best Lyrics.

The new production dropped the role of the mistress - and the interval - and concentrated more on the relationship between the brothers and their ever-present mother and father's ghosts. This is the version that has appeared at the Menier.John Doyle's production is staged traverse-style so the audience is fully involved with the action, mostly being pelted with dollar bills that are thrown around by the Mizners regularly, nicely illustrating their approach to money, especially Wilson's - it's only money, there's always some sucker to fleece it from.

The brothers are delightfully played by Michael Jibson as the quiet architect Addison and David Bedella as the devil-may-care Wilson, both in their own way obsessively chasing the road to fame and fortune promised them by their dying father. Again the closeness of the audience to the actors was rewarded by the subtle playing of Jibson in particular, as well as the always fine Gillian Bevan as Mrs. Mizner. Her solo number "Isn't He Something!" was performed beautifully, making the mother's love for her wastrel son fully believable.
Glyn Kerslake was effective as the Mizner's father, dying early but hovering around the action disapproving as his sons fail at his dreams for them and Jon Robyns was charismatic as Hollis the rich boy who is the love of Addison's life.

The ensemble did sterling work, Fiona Dunn in particular was great fun as a Florida snob who engages Addison to build her a dream house.

I wasn't a fan of Doyle's SWEENEY TODD but here his direction keeps the show moving while also illuminating the dynamic of the brother's relationship with small but telling touches.Although I liked the BOUNCE cast recording it never really settled in my mind but here the score struck me as the natural progression from ASSASSINS and PASSION. By turns melodic, funny, tart and insightful, the score also includes one of Sondheim's most lovely songs "The Best Thing That Ever Has Happened". Originally sung in BOUNCE by Wilson and his mistress, here the song has been moved to Addison and Hollis and makes much more sense dramatically.

I suspect ROAD SHOW will not get too many outings down the years but it is a worthy addition to Sondheim's body of work and, like it's odd central characters, is proof that there is always another chance when it looks like something has failed.

What's the best way to spend the hottest day of the year Constant Reader? How's about sitting in a 40-seat theatre under a railway arch in Southwark? It works for me - especially if I am seeing one of my favorite Sondheim musicals.But is ASSASSINS a musical? Not in the usual sense of the word. There are not many musicals where one of the leading characters will have two intensely powerful monologues with no solo number to 'cap' them but then the world of ASSASSINS is unpredictable, just as it should be.

Unsurprisingly the show has never found the acclaim it deserves on the Great White Way, no doubt in part to the unflinching light it shines at that most absurd of concepts The American Dream. If allegedly anyone can find fame as the President then surely it follows that anyone can find fame as the President's killer. It's not unusual to say that a Sondheim score haunts you but what I love about ASSASSINS is that John Weidman's morally-questioning book is as powerful and a true equal to the music. Although not without it's flaws one thing this production pointed out strongly is the role of the Balladeer, here played pointedly by Nolan Frederick. As the audience's unofficial guide he is the one who frames the musical numbers of the show's 'historical' assassins - John Wilkes Booth, Charles Guiteau, Leon Czolgosz and Giuseppe Zangara while the 'modern' failed assassins - Sam Byck, Lynette Fromme, Sara Jane Moore and John Hinckley are mostly given scenes by themselves.Towards the end though as the Assassins and the Balladeer argue during the song ANOTHER NATIONAL ANTHEM, the Assassins force the Balladeer from the stage and by doing so remove the show's moral compass... which leads into the wonderfully-written scene where the Assassins seduce and convince the suicidal Lee Harvey Oswald to the course of action that does indeed unify them finally as a group of people to be taken seriously and not just disparate, sad, random acts. Personally I like to believe that's what really happened in the Texas School book depository!

This also echoes the actions of the fairy-tale characters in Sondheim's previous show INTO THE WOODS who sacrifice the onstage narrator to the avenging widow of The Giant because they don't like his superior tone.As I said the weather on the day we went was sweltering and the confusing and cramped front-of-house area at the Union - seemingly the alleyway between two buildings - didn't bode well for having to spend the next 110 minutes cooped up inside a small auditorium. Thankfully when once inside the space was deliciously air-conditioned although we did have to sit in the cinema-style seats which wobbled alarmingly on a podium - especially when the not-onstage cast sat on the back of it.

As I said the production was not without it's flaws. The scene changes were frustratingly slow for a show that is supposed to keep hitting you with scenes and songs which stalled the momentum of the scene that had gone before and the choreography for THE BALLAD OF CZOLGOSZ - one of my favourite numbers - seemed needlessly tricksy and prop-heavy - especially as the stage directions are in the song - you just need a line of people queuing up to shake hands with President McKinley! Although I am all for atmosphere, the loud blasts of dry ice from behind us were annoyingly diverting and dissipated above our heads before reaching the stage anyway. There were also one or two dodgy voices in the ensemble although I really liked the idea of having them as presidential bodyguards and I thought their singing of Sondheim's added song SOMETHING JUST BROKE - in which we hear reactions to the killings from ordinary people down the ages - was particularly fine.

Despite all these I have to say this is one of the most enjoyable small-scale Sondheims I have seen. Michael Strassen's production is gloriously unrelenting and he has elicited fine performances from some key members of his cast. Glyn Kerslake and John Barr are two actors who I know more for their concert or cd appearances than for any stage work but here they both gave eye-catching performances as the vain, charismatic Booth and the clearly insane Guiteau, Barr making the most of THE BALLAD OF GUITEAU in which Sondheim used the actual poem that Guiteau recited on the gallows, as he cakewalked and cavorted nearer and nearer to the rope even with his legs tied together.

Adam Jarrell was an impassioned and sympathetic Leon Czolgosz especially in his scene with the brusque but well-meaning Emma Goldman (Lisa Stokke) and Nolan Frederick was fine as The Balladeer.Just out of interest, I wonder how anarchist Emma Goldman feels in the afterlife about featuring in two Broadway musicals - this and RAGTIME? I'm sure it makes up for the fact she was deported from America in 1917 eh?Leigh McDonald was hugely enjoyable as Sara Jane Moore, the hapless assassin who brings her dog and small son to where she is going to assassinate Gerald Ford. McDonald played her with an attractive zaniness and a genuine sense of desperation.

However the most out-there performance was Nick Holder as the paranoid Samuel Byck who in his two long and engrossing monologues took us deep into the heart of the Assassins' psyche - the irrational sense of grievance, the anger at failed dreams, the realisation that nothing changes whoever is in power. Holder was frightening, hilarious, grotesque and tragic within seconds of each other.What I loved so much about this production is that unlike the recent trend of small-scale shows this one had musicians - yes, SIX real musicians - who got on with playing the score leaving the actors free to get on with their job.

This remarkable work which showcases one of Sondheim's most gloriously theatrical scores will continue to linger long in the mind and will always intrigue me to revisit it's dark carnival of killers.